I have an ap with a lvl4 on a 411ah board with 6 clients connected. For some reason the ap will drop the clients and re-associate after a period of time. (day, few hours etc). I have not been able to determine why this is.
I also have a second ap in the same area (few hundred yards away) that is a lvl 5 license 433 board. similar clients but no drops. Power levels are all better than 60db on both aps.
My backhaul is a lvl 4 license and never drops.
Both aps are running xr9 cards with 5mhz spacing. One is on 2427 and the failing one on 2437. Both tx power levels are left at default and both have 10dbi panel antenna’s attached.
Do I need a lvl 5 license to prevent drops? Does anyone suspect an interference problem. (spectrum was clean when deployed a month ago. Problem seems to have existed since day one)
I have not tried replacing the xr9 card or changing frequencies.
Any input would be appreciated.
Try putting in the wireless source in system logging and watch the log. It should give you some more information and possibly a clue as to what is going on with dropping clients.
Level 4 is enough for it to run as an AP, if it was level 3 you could only have 1 client associated with the device, other than that there are no limitations in the software for the AP, just what is physically possible.
Definately enable the log to monitor the wireless cards.
Do you have the ability to trade the used frequency between the two (set 2437 to 2427 and vice-versa)? If so, does the problem follow the frequency or stay with the AP when they are traded? Sometimes interference can cause issues like this.
Scott
What equipment are you using for the Clients ?
I will enable various logging.
clients are xr9 with 10dbi panels. One with a 15dbi yagi. Happens to all of them. boards are 411 with lvl3 licenses.
I went into logging and rules and added wireless with the action of memory.
I have done this in the clients and ap. Incidently half the clients dropped for 18 min since my last post. Dropped and re-associated together. They are actually back down again as I right this. Temp here is about 95degrees F today with humidity in the 90’s. Something we don’t see often just as a side note.
Logs are showing disconnect for ‘extensive data loss’. power level is high 50’s. ccq on the two radios in question is 86/100 or so.
So even though power and ccq look good something is interfering enough to cause a re-association and in some cases an extended down time???
Is there a field I can turn on in show columns under wireless tables, registration that would give me an idea of an error rate?
Seems to be a common issue in the forums.
My thoughts:
What about lowering the bitrate on the clients. they are connecting at 54 although one of the trouble radios is at 12Mbps (12Mbps/4/54Mbps/4) Not sure what the 4’s mean.
I have nstreme enabled although on my second ap I have nstreme enabled an no drops. Aps are on their own boards (411ah). running ROS 4.5. (some are 4.6) Perhaps turn off nstreme???
I’ve read that I could change hwretries to strike a balance between small latency and more disconnects, and higher latency and less disconnects. I have set it to 7 and am watching for trends. It was set to 4. If I understand correctly I’ve sacrificed some latency for reliability.
I will look into swapping the frequencies over the next week. I think it will be possible because of the small number of clients.
Does anyone recommend an upgrade to 4.10 or potentially a downgrade to 3.30. (I’ve heard it’s the most reliable???)
Thoughts?
Do you have any reason to be using Nstreme ?
Just that i have a lot of clients of all kinds connected to MT APs, and they drop off very rarely.
If the spectrum is clean, then what you are experiencing isn’t normal at all.
How are the Client 411s connected ? As Stations ?
Not sure I entirely understand what using nstreme does for me so I can’t say I have any good reason for using it.
clients are set as wds station to wds aps. Everything is setup for bridging. polling is on. csma is disabled. nstreme enabled. One ap configured the same way seems to have no issues. this second one has trouble.
I’m game to try some new things while the network is small.